Mayor’s cycle vision ‘could get derailed’

Boris Johnson’s plans to reconfigure London’s streets to make them bicycle-friendly could get bogged down in bureaucracy and controversy, a road safety campaigner has warned.

Robert Davis, chair of the Road Danger Reduction Forum, said cycle groups should not assume the mayor’s plans – which include segregated cycle routes that take road capacity away from general traffic  – would be delivered.

“I am quite happy to accept that Andrew Gilligan [the mayor’s cycling commissioner] and others have an honest commitment towards cycling, and I share some of their tactics and strategies to achieve this,” said Davis. “[But] there is a big difference between a vision stated in general, and often abstract terms, and the specific objectives required in order to achieve it.

“There is really quite a lot that can go wrong, and I suspect that those without the experience of the labyrinthine bureaucracies of local government do not quite grasp this.”

Discuss this at LTT's Cycle City event on the 25-26 April